Some good points Chris. IMO, turn signals should always be amber and stop lights should always be red. It's simple logic. The rules of the road state that a flashing amber light means "CAUTION". You see those at construction zones etc where there may be "something different happening". A flashing red light means "STOP and proceed with caution". Many intersections have a flashing red light coupled with a stop sign. Many intersection signal lights will flash red one direction and amber the other in non-peak hours. I fail to see why this convention has been broken on North American built vehicles. Have you ever followed a vehicle that incorporates the stop and turn signals into the same bulb? If the driver puts on the turn signal then pumps the brake some, you can't tell what's going to happen as the red lights on both sides are flashing. Turn signals should always be amber, IMO. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher H" <imperial67@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 12:10 PM Subject: Re: IML: Side Marker Lamps/Reflectors Those fender-mounted turn signal lights (they are not side markers, even though everyone calls them that) were not required in Europe/Japan in 1967-8 when the law took effect in the US, and the US carmakers and lawmakers were not likely thinking about export markets for US products (few US-market products even sell there today). I also don't believe Europe requires them to be behind the front wheel: Porsche puts them where our market's front side markers go, but they wrap into the wheel arch so they're visible from the rear-side. US cars only require one reverse lamp as well, believe it or not. The reason it's more common in Europe is that the EU also requires a red rear foglamp, which many automakers locate where the left reverse lamp would be. The only vehicle I know of that is sold in the US with such a configuration is the Mercedes G-Class. As for the US cars getting the turn signal on the fender (or somewhere visible), some carmakers already use it voluntarily. Many have adopted it in the side mirror housings, which is more visible to pedestrians in front of the car as well as vehicles in the next lane. But looking at the degradation of lighting functionality despite all this new lighting technology (there are several new cars from the US, Europe and Asia that use cutting-edge LEDs for taillamps yet combine the brake, tail and turn signal into a single red unit, when it doesn't take a scientist to figure out that separate, and differently colored, rear lamps communicate the driver's intentions faster). I asked a Chrysler designer rep about the cheapo single-bulb taillamps on the base 300 and his defense of why there were no amber signals was "they're not required by law." We'll see what our new Imperial has if it gets the go-ahead, but I imagine it'll be plain red unless the Fed steps in again. Maybe they'll pay a tribute to 1969 and give us some sequentials! Chris in LA ----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com ----------------- This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm